Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain was the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for Nirvana. Cobain was considered the “spokesman of a generation” and spearheaded the Grunge movement in the USA, though he often felt that the public misunderstood the lyrics and meanings of his songs. Influenced by The Beatles (particularly by John Lennon), Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and The Sex Pistols, his style set the tone for future grunge and alternative acts that would come after him.
Kurt famously played Fender guitars, most notably a Mustang he modified to be played left-handed. Fender later released a model of the Mustang named after Kurt after his death. Kurt also played a Sunburst Stratocaster, also modified to be played left-handed. He often used Boss or Electro-Harmonix pedals and played them through a Vox amplifier.

When Kurt Cobain hit the stage, it was very often with a Mustang guitar—an en... more

When Kurt Cobain hit the stage, it was very often with a Mustang guitar—an enigmatic anti-hero figure with an esoteric anti-hero instrument. It's with great pride then that Fender introduces the Kurt Cobain Mustang guitar, which evokes the man, the band, the sound and the times, and gives an authentically crafted nod to one of the most unlikely guitars to ever find itself at the center of a musical maelstrom.

Kurt Cobain liked Mustang guitars a lot. For one, he preferred offbeat guitars that didn't cost zillions of dollars, and the Mustang certainly fit those two criteria. Also, being somewhat physically diminutive himself, he liked to perform live with slightly more diminutive guitars, like the Mustang and Jaguar® guitar, which better fit his hands and his reach.

Inspired by his arsenal of modded guitars, the Kurt Cobain Mustang guitar takes you back there, with highly distinctive features including an angled single-coil Mustang neck pickup and ferocious Seymour Duncan JB humbucking bridge pickup mounted directly to the body, dual on-off/phase in-out switches for each pickup, a polyester-finished alder body and an Adjusto-Matic bridge with dynamic vibrato tailpiece.

Cobain used a C.F. Martin & Company D-18E acoustic guitar, as see in this pho... more

Cobain used a C.F. Martin & Company D-18E acoustic guitar, as see in this photo of Kurt performing live. This information is originally sourced from the official Martin website's "Famous Martin Owners" section.

As seen throughout in the now legendary music video for "Smells Like Teen Spi... more

As seen throughout in the now legendary music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Kurt Cobain brandishes his left-handed Fender Mustang Dark Lake Placid Blue with Stripe.

In an interview with GuitarWorld, when asked why he favors low-end models of guitars, Cobain replied:
"I don’t favor them — I can afford them. [laughs] I’m left-handed, and it’s not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars. But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. I’ve only owned two of them."

He added, "They’re cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small. They also don’t stay in tune, and when you want to raise the string action on the fretboard, you have to loosen all the strings and completely remove the bridge. You have to turn these little screws with your fingers and hope that you’ve estimated it right. If you screw up, you have to repeat the process over and over until you get it right. Whoever invented that guitar was a dork."

Japanese-made Fender Stratocaster with Seymour Duncan ’59 bridge humbucker. Used primarily for destruction; original neck broken and replaced with a Fernandes neck and later a Kramer neck, many of which were used on Kurt’s “Destruction Strats.

This Telecaster was wielded by Kurt during the Nevermind tour. It was actuall... more

This Telecaster was wielded by Kurt during the Nevermind tour. It was actually a 3-tone sunburst guitar, but it was painted blue with latex house paint. Kurt scraped hearts and "Courtney" into the blue paint. This guitar was unmodified. It was smashed at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio De Janeiro on January 16th, 1993. The neck found its way into the hands of Recordmecca, after being picked up by Louie Mattieu of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were co-headlining the event.

This acoustic guitar was used for the recording of the song "Polly" on Neverm... more

This acoustic guitar was used for the recording of the song "Polly" on Nevermind. When told in a Guitar World interview that the acoustic guitar he played in the song sounded a little flat, Cobain replied "That’s a 20-dollar junk shop Stella — I didn’t bother changing the strings. [laughs] It barely stays in tune. In fact I have to use duct tape to hold the tuning keys in place." It has also been rumored that the Stella only had 5 strings on it at the time of the recording. It is believed that this guitar was also used on the recording of "Something in the Way".

Jeff Owens writes in an [article](http://www2.fender.com/experience/guitarchi... more

Jeff Owens writes in an article published by Fender, "The Jag-Stang was designed by Kurt Cobain, and the design process was rather simple - he took Polaroids of half of a Jaguar and half of a Mustang, and taped them together. After making a few small drawn modifications and notes, the design was sent to Fender Custom Shop master builder Larry Brooks. The Jag-Stang wasn't used very often while Kurt had it, not only due to some glitches that still needed to be worked out, but also the fact that Kurt got the Sonic Blue one not too long before he died.
Fender released the Jag-Stang to the public in both Sonic Blue and Fiesta Red in 1995-1996. It was reissued in 2005-2006."

This is one of the first guitar Kurt ever bought. Looking at these photos – w... more

This is one of the first guitar Kurt ever bought. Looking at these photos – which as far as we know don’t have an official dating, we see Kurt playing a Univox guitar. But, since we don’t have a clear date on the pictures were taken, let’s try and figure it out.

On further inspection of those photos we see a couple of concert flyers on the wall behind Kurt; there’s one of the band Dr.Know who played at Downtown Tacoma (around 2 hours drive from Kurt’s place) on September 27th 1986, and another one of Meat Puppets and Black Flag. We also know that the picture was taken at his house in Aberdeen, WA, but not in his actual room but in the hallway connecting the rooms on the top floor (see Tour of Kurt Cobain’s Childhood Home). Kurt lived in that house from 1983 to 1984 when he was kicked out by his mom for dropping out of highschool. He then went on to live with his friends until September 1986 when his mom loaned him money to move into another house with Matt Lukin from the band Melvins.

So it is almost sure that the photo of Kurt holding a Univox Hi-Flier was taken in late September 1986, in a room which was most likely set up as a temporary place for Kurt to sleep before he moved on.

Now to the actual guitar,

Kurt’s Univox was a model called Hi-Flier, and it was most likely manufactured sometime between 1974 and 1977. Main guide in determining these dates are the two humbuckers on the guitar which didn’t appear on this model until 1974, and it’s white pickguard which was replaced with a black one on sunburst models in 1977. It was basically a cheap alternative to the Mosrite Ventures model, a guitar Kurt used later on in his career.

Kurt played this guitar presumably from mid 80s to around 1988 on all of the early Nirvana gigs in 1987. He painted the pickguard pink, and had a ton of stickers on the body. He then ended up smashing it at Washington’s Evergreen State College in October 1988. This is assumed to be the first time he ever destroyed a guitar on stage.

Kurt Cobain's Martin D-18 is found at the Martin Factory in Nazareth, PA. Th... more

Kurt Cobain's Martin D-18 is found at the Martin Factory in Nazareth, PA. The plaque located under the guitar reads, "This well-worn D-18 was coined "Grandpa" by Cobain himself, and was gifted to the rocker by then girlfriend Mary Lou Lord in 1991. The guitar was was used by Cobain by while on tour for Nirvana's second and most notable album, "Nevermind".
Here's a pic of the guitar as well. https://instagram.com/p/6fYMQonc5r/?taken-by=inwaltwetrust

Kurt Cobain in this picture is playing a Fender Black Stratocaster.In 1993, p... more

Kurt Cobain in this picture is playing a Fender Black Stratocaster.In 1993, people say that Kurt had half a dozen black and white Stratocasters to break. He also modified his pickups to Seymour Duncans. In this photo, he is using a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup.

Though many Epiphone models were under-appreciated at the time of their relea... more

Though many Epiphone models were under-appreciated at the time of their release, numerous artists through the years have recognized the unique appeal of these guitars. Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Kurt Cobain, Paul Gilbert and Steve Marriot are a few of the artists that embraced the tone and build quality of Kalamazoo built Epiphones. The Wilshire is perhaps the rarest of these guitars and ironically, one of the best!